FMU women defeat Newberry, advance to second round

GREENWOOD — Seniors Eboni Fields and Nicole Mealing have the Francis Marion women moving on to the second round of the Division II tournament.

Fields scored 21 and Mealing added 20 as the third-seeded Patriots defeated Newberry 103-96 on Friday in the opening round of the NCAA Division II Women’s Basketball Southeast Regional.

The Patriots, who built a 28-point lead early in the second half but had to withstand a furious Newberry rally, improve to 27-4 and advance to face Tusculum in Saturday’s first semifinal contest at 5 p.m. Tusculum defeated Clayton State 69-63.

“I was very pleased with our team’s response once Newberry went on that big run,” third-year FMU coach Heather Macy said. “We showed great resolve, hit some huge shots, and we are very pleased to be playing another day.

“I just cannot say enough about the resolve of this group and the way they keep coming. At this stage, everyone has good basketball teams and you have to play a complete 40 minutes.”

FMU placed five players in double figures. Fields connected on 8-of-15 shots, including 5-of-9 three-point attempts. Mealing was 8-of-16 from the field en route to equaling her season high.

“We played as well as possible in the first half — very pleased at that,” Mealing said. We must continue to play hard throughout the second half.”

Junior Shannon Singleton-Bates scored 17 points and passed Fenissa Rice to move into 19th place on the Patriot career scoring list with 1,194 points. Junior point guard Robin Colbert tallied 13 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.

Senior center Anita Bulcher led Newberry (21-9) with 24 points and 14 rebounds. Guard Helen McKinney scored 21 points as the five Newberry starters accounted for 94 of their team’s 96 points.
FMU got off to a fast start and took a 36-17 lead with 8:47 left as the hot-shooting Patriots connected on 15 of their first 23 field-goal attempts.

Mealing hit two 3-pointers to build the lead to 52-29 with 1:49 left. Monica Mann’s fast-break basket gave Francis Marion a 57-33 halftime lead.

Baskets by Fields and Singleton-Bates to open the second stanza pushed the FMU lead to 28 points at 61-33. Over the next 7:26, Newberry rallied with a 27-6 run to cut the 28-point deficit down to seven at 67-60.

Five straight points by the Patriots extended the lead back to double digits, but again Newberry would close to within seven at 74-67 following a jumper by Bulcher with 9:23 left.

“Newberry is a very good basketball team. We knew that they were going to make a run,” Macy said. “They made a couple of big shots and we allowed our misses to get us down, and we didn’t buckle down defensively like we needed to do.”

A 23-foot 3-pointer by Mealing just inside the five-minute mark gave FMU a 90-79 lead. A three-pointer by Fields from the left corner made it 97-84 with 2:43 remaining.

Newberry responded with six unanswered points, pulling within 97-90 with 1:14 left when Amy Browne made two free throws. But Newberry didn’t closer than six points the rest of the way.

For the game, Francis Marion made 50 percent from the floor, including 9-of-20 three-point attempts, and 20-of-28 free throws.

Newberry shot 55 percent over the final 20 minutes to finish the game at 46.7 percent, while hitting 23 of 33 free throws.

And after getting dominated on the boards in the first half, Newberry finished the game with an overall 45-44 edge on the boards.